


Brought to Light

by LobaEclipse



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, F/M, Gen, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-04-29 05:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5117885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LobaEclipse/pseuds/LobaEclipse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Creatures of the night, brought to light.</p>
<p>A vampires-and-werewolves!AU, sorta canon-compliant.  Interconnected oneshots, mostly Olicity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Mid Season One**

 

It wasn't until he had dragged his bleeding, weakening body into the cramped back seat of her car that that it occurred to him that trusting Felicity Smoak might have been a tactical error.

In his defense, he had only ever met her previously in human form and while his sense of smell was slightly keener he still missed the subtle nuances. As a wolf, everything was clear and sharp and a thousand times more obvious. Her scent was ingrained into the fabric and plastic of the vehicle's interior. It was familiar to him from their many brief encounters. In fact, it was the reason he'd been able to locate her car amongst the hundreds of others in the parking garage. But there were layers to it, hidden details he hadn't been able to pick up on before. Even as he'd felt the first wash of relief and hope at finding a potential ally in his time of need, the primitive, instinctual part of his brain had been sending up red flags.

She wasn't human.

Not entirely.

It wasn't as though he had a leg to stand on if he were to make accusations of that nature. There were plenty of people, human and otherwise, who would take one look (or sniff) in his direction and decide that he wasn't trustworthy. They'd probably be right.

But Oliver had survived some terrible things and he knew to trust his instincts. His instincts said to trust Felicity and so he did, even if those instincts were having second thoughts. She was a good person. She was cheerful and honest and blindingly intelligent. He was also literally betting his life on the assumption that she was brave and loyal as well.

His understanding of her as a person just didn't fit with the scent he associated with fear and death. It was a sickly sort of smell, enticing to the predator that he was – or at least it had been the first time he'd encountered it years ago. He'd learned his lesson. He would fight such creatures if he had to, if they threatened himself or his city, but he'd never think of them as easy prey. Once again, he'd underestimated her. In his current state, if she turned on him in bloodlust, he could only hope to escape.

He heard the rapid clack of her heels approaching and realized that he'd have to change the tentative plan he'd formed. He had wanted to dredge up the strength to transform before she found him, to reveal as few of his secrets to her as possible. Now he was willing to show her a little bit more, perhaps to strengthen their bond from casual acquaintances to fellow non-humans. Maybe she'd be more likely to help him if she knew _what_ as well as _who_ he was.

There was no more time to worry about it. She opened the car door and settled inside.

He might have grunted when he lifted his head, or maybe she could smell the blood that was soaking into the upholstery. She stiffened. Her eyes met his in the rearview mirror (She did cast a reflection; he filed that away for future reference). He met her gaze evenly, though he struggled to keep the pain and tension from showing in his face, lest she misinterpret it as aggression. The last thing he wanted to do was pick a fight.

She took a full two seconds to get over her shock before she whipped around to look at him properly, one hand clenched on the back of the seat. He made sure he had her full attention again before he transformed. She made a little noise of surprise tinged with fear and he hastened to reassure her.

Even after she saw the wound, her reaction was concern and mild nausea. She didn't curl back her lips to bare glistening fangs. Her eyes didn't widen with feral thirst. She offered to take him to a hospital before reluctantly agreeing to the foundry instead. He wondered if he had hallucinated the scent or if she was different somehow.

He could feel his consciousness slipping away as she drove out of the parking garage. Streetlights flicked steadily overhead when he collapsed back in the seat. Felicity kept up a constant stream of nervous chatter that he clung to like a lifeline, fighting the current of oblivion that threatened to drag him under.

His first instinct had been right all along. He trusted her, he truly did. And maybe he said part of that out loud, because she when she turned to look back at him she smiled. Her blue eyes shone red in the darkness. Those two points of light were the last things he saw before unconsciousness finally claimed him.

ooo

“Oliver, you have to let me in.”

Her voice seemed to be coming from a long way away and it took a great deal of concentration for him to understand her words. Even then, they didn't make much sense.

“Oliver. Oliver! Look at me.”

Warm hands touched his face. With herculean effort, he dragged his eyes open. Felicity's worried face peered down at him.

“There you are. Okay. We're at the foundry, around back, at the rusty old door with the shiny new keypad next to it that is actually pretty conspicuous for what is supposed to be your hidden . . . lair, cave . . . whatever. And I'm pretty sure I could hack it in my sleep. Which I just did; but not in my sleep, obviously. Because I am definitely awake and it looks like I will be up all night with you anyway. Not that – you know what, never mind.” She stopped her ramble with what was likely as much effort as he had taken to open his eyes.

Oliver was grateful, because he was really having trouble understanding what she was trying to tell him.

She took a very deep breath in and then let it out. “I need you to invite me in,” she said, slowly and clearly.

The words made sense, at least, and there was some other part of his brain that seemed to think that her request was perfectly logical and to be expected, but he couldn't quite latch on to why. Still, she was trying to help him and she seemed to think it was important.

He breathed deeply like she had done, smelling his own blood on her hands and feeling a flare of pain across his chest. His eyes scrunched closed of their own volition, but he managed to form words on the exhale.

“Go inside.”

It was less of an invitation and more of an order, but it must have done the trick because her hands left his cheeks and then she was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Post Season One**

 

After the Undertaking, after Tommy, he ran.

He ran all the way back to Lian Yu with his metaphorical tail between his legs and spent the next few months doing pretty much literally the same. He was an expert at compartmentalizing himself, though when he was in wolf form the lines became a little bit blurred. All that pain and rage and fear was still there, but it felt simpler. He could lose himself in the basic functions of keeping himself alive. He hunted, he found fresh water, he bedded down in defensible lairs in case any of the wild boar took him by surprise. Only when the most pressing concerns of survival had been taken care of did his mind allow itself to turn to complicated emotional matters.

And then, well, he was essentially alone on the island. There was no one around to hear him howl and howl as though his heart would break.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Mid Season Two**

 

He didn't know what to do with Roy. Oh, he knew what he _wanted_ to do with him. Never before had he felt such an overwhelming desire to grab a pup by the scruff and shake him until his teeth rattled. But even if he could – and, loath to admit it though he was, Roy in his Mirakuru rage was far stronger than he – it wouldn't solve anything.

He'd never bothered to actually go to his psychology class at Yale, but the last few years of his life had forced him to become quite adept at reading people, both human and other. And Roy, unlike Oliver, had been born _other_. The wolf was in his mind and his blood. He accepted that part of himself as easily and unconsciously as he did the color of his eyes. There was no conflicting nature between man and beast, simply a straightforward acceptance that Oliver was only just beginning to grasp. But precious little else in his life was balanced or stable and typical wolf-like behavior had turned upside down and backwards. He'd been on his own for far too long and though he was right at the time in his life to be leaving his family pack, he had circled back around and was seeking it instead.

Oliver had no idea how a true pack – a supportive, protective family unit – worked. It sounded nice, much better than ARGUS's harsh discipline or the complex hierarchy of the Bratva. He would like to give something like that to Roy but he didn't know how. The closest he'd come to a real pack was under the tutelage of Yao Fei and Shado, but their time had been brief and fractured and he'd been stubbornly reluctant to learn from them. Not for the first time, Oliver wished he could go back and do things differently.

Still, his first teachers had managed to help him uncover the beginnings of patience and respectfulness in himself. Maybe he could start there.

He wondered how Roy would feel about slapping a bowl of water.


	4. Chapter 4

**Late Season 3**

 

She’d had enough sense to grab his bag when they left, though her rescue attempt was even more haphazard than their usual plans.  Ra’s al Ghul was a perfect predator, patient and utterly relentless.  The Lazarus Pit had proven that time was on his side.  He would hunt down Oliver and everyone that he loved and he would never stop. 

Felicity had defied the Demon’s Head, because of course she had, and Oliver couldn’t fault her for that.  He’d told her as much.  But he’d given his word, his life in exchange for his sister’s, and he would not subject his family to a life on the run full of misery and fear until they were finally overcome. 

So he said his farewells to them under the cold desert stars.  The bag sat at his feet, ignored until he kissed Felicity for what he promised himself would not be the last time. 

“I need you to hold on to this for me,” he said softly as he bent down. 

The pelt was bulky and heavy, but the look on her face when she recognized it told him that even her boundless curiosity had been dampened by worry and she hadn’t peeked in the bag when she took it. 

It was hardly a pretty thing.  Scars marred the back and chest, there were singe marks on the tail and one hind leg, and the head was missing, likely still on a hood in a Starling City evidence locker.  Other parts of it had been trimmed away over the years – a tuft of hair here, a claw there – for various uses.  It had been crammed into boxes and holes in the ground.  There was a tiny nick, almost imperceptible, on the left foreleg because even though he had braced himself for the pain, he’d flinched just a little and the knife had slipped.  Of all the times he’d stared death in the eye, that had been one of the few when he’d blinked. 

“Oliver . . .”  She said his name with such reverence as she gently brushed her fingertips over the coarse fur. 

“I don’t know how long this will take,” he said.  “And I don’t know what I’ll have to do, what he’ll make me into.  Everything that I am will belong to the League.  But he can’t have this, because I’m giving it to you.” 

He settled the pelt over her shoulders like a cape with the forepaws crossed over her chest and the tail dragging in the dirt at her heels.  For all of its flaws, the underside was softer than buckskin and always seemed to be a bit warmer than it should have been.  She ducked her head and smiled into the ruff. 

“But don’t you . . . need it?” Felicity asked even as she clutched the pelt around herself instinctively. 

“Not all of it,” he said, showing her the thin circlet of braided hide around his wrist.  “But it’s still a part of me, so to speak.” 

“Literally.  It’s _literally_ part of you.  Are you sure –”

“Felicity, I want you to have it.” 

She worried her lower lip with her teeth. 

Oliver tugged her closer, his forehead against hers, breathing her in.  “This isn’t goodbye,” he promised her, “but you have to go.  Please take it with you.” 

“You want me to?” she said, looking him straight in the eye. 

“Yes.” 

“I expect you to come back for it, mister,” she said, swatting him on the chest. 

He caught her hand.  “I’ll come back for you.”

She blinked before the pink-tinged tears could fall.  Deliberately, she stepped away and slipped her hand free.  He watched her walk to the top of the rise, steady and strong even though she kept her shoulders hunched and her arms folded against her chest.  It was a small comfort, because she was still tired and frightened and her heart ached just as much as his, but at least he knew that she couldn’t feel the desert cold.  In that moment, it was enough.


End file.
